Skip to main content

Getting started - Library

Installation​

Pip​

PyPI version

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install playwright
playwright install

Conda​

Anaconda version

conda config --add channels conda-forge
conda config --add channels microsoft
conda install playwright
playwright install

These commands download the Playwright package and install browser binaries for Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. To modify this behavior see installation parameters.

Usage​

Once installed, you can import Playwright in a Python script, and launch any of the 3 browsers (chromium, firefox and webkit).

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch()
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("http://playwright.dev")
    print(page.title())
    browser.close()

Playwright supports two variations of the API: synchronous and asynchronous. If your modern project uses asyncio, you should use async API:

import asyncio
from playwright.async_api import async_playwright

async def main():
    async with async_playwright() as p:
        browser = await p.chromium.launch()
        page = await browser.new_page()
        await page.goto("http://playwright.dev")
        print(await page.title())
        await browser.close()

asyncio.run(main())

First script​

In our first script, we will navigate to https://playwright.dev/ and take a screenshot in WebKit.

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.webkit.launch()
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://playwright.dev/")
    page.screenshot(path="example.png")
    browser.close()

By default, Playwright runs the browsers in headless mode. To see the browser UI, pass the headless=False flag while launching the browser. You can also use slow_mo to slow down execution. Learn more in the debugging tools section.

firefox.launch(headless=False, slow_mo=50)

Interactive mode (REPL)​

You can launch the interactive python REPL:

python

and then launch Playwright within it for quick experimentation:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright
playwright = sync_playwright().start()
# Use playwright.chromium, playwright.firefox or playwright.webkit
# Pass headless=False to launch() to see the browser UI
browser = playwright.chromium.launch()
page = browser.new_page()
page.goto("https://playwright.dev/")
page.screenshot(path="example.png")
browser.close()
playwright.stop()

Async REPL such as asyncio REPL:

python -m asyncio
from playwright.async_api import async_playwright
playwright = await async_playwright().start()
browser = await playwright.chromium.launch()
page = await browser.new_page()
await page.goto("https://playwright.dev/")
await page.screenshot(path="example.png")
await browser.close()
await playwright.stop()

Pyinstaller​

You can use Playwright with Pyinstaller to create standalone executables.

main.py
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch()
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://playwright.dev/")
    page.screenshot(path="example.png")
    browser.close()

If you want to bundle browsers with the executables:

PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH=0 playwright install chromium
pyinstaller -F main.py
note

Bundling the browsers with the executables will generate bigger binaries. It is recommended to only bundle the browsers you use.

Known issues​

time.sleep() leads to outdated state​

Most likely you don't need to wait manually, since Playwright has auto-waiting. If you still rely on it, you should use page.wait_for_timeout(5000) instead of time.sleep(5) and it is better to not wait for a timeout at all, but sometimes it is useful for debugging. In these cases, use our wait (wait_for_timeout) method instead of the time module. This is because we internally rely on asynchronous operations and when using time.sleep(5) they can't get processed correctly.

incompatible with SelectorEventLoop of asyncio on Windows​

Playwright runs the driver in a subprocess, so it requires ProactorEventLoop of asyncio on Windows because SelectorEventLoop does not supports async subprocesses.

On Windows Python 3.7, Playwright sets the default event loop to ProactorEventLoop as it is default on Python 3.8+.

Threading​

Playwright's API is not thread-safe. If you are using Playwright in a multi-threaded environment, you should create a playwright instance per thread. See threading issue for more details.